Three Arab students last week threw stones at Jewish students from the Rose middle school in Acco who came to the Hilmi Shaf’ai Ort Educational Campus in the city as part of a joint English language project, Ynet reported Wednesday.
The educational meeting became violent when an Arab student suspected that a Jewish visitor said something inappropriate, and decided to wait for him outside the school with two friends and threw stones at him. One female teacher was injured but did not require medical attention.
The mother of the student who was attacked told Ynet that “these meetings are blessed and I hope they continue. The fact that incidents happen does not mean that we should give up. Everyone needs to learn to get along and the educators must chart a path for civil coexistence for both sides.”
Other parents disagreed and appealed to the middle school management demanding to stop the project. “We thought our children would be protected, I will not send my daughter there anymore,” said one of them.
During the May 2021 Guardian of the Walls riots and in the months that followed, four Hilmi Shaf’ai teachers posted pro-violence messages on social media, according to Israel Hayom. One of them, Aadel Rian, who teaches and coordinates social studies and has been on staff at Hilmi Shaf’ai since 2009, wrote on Facebook on October 2, 2021: “May your hands become paralyzed, O Allah. Allah, protect the Al-Aqsa Mosque.”
The same teacher posted: “God is greater than any tyrant. Allah, protect the Muslim youth, give us victory over those who wronged us,” and shared a video of stone-throwing, rioting, and arrests on the Temple Mount, with the caption: “The detainees are defending the honor of the nation in the face of the invasion of Al-Aqsa by large occupation forces. Jerusalem is revolting.” The next day he added the Palestinian flag and Al-Aqsa Mosque to his profile picture.
Adam Kashasha, a music teacher who has been working at Hilmi Shaf’ai since 2014, posted a scene from a Syrian TV series about the capture of collaborators with the French occupation, and wrote: “Allah will act against every agent who acts against his country and homeland.”
There was also a PE teacher who’s been working at the school since 2012, and a female English teacher who was also hired in 2012, both of whom posted open incitements on social media, and presumably had a following of their students.
The Rose middle school director sent a letter to the parents of the class whose member had been attacked and shared with them the details of the case and the investigation that followed. She said both schools condemned the violence and used disciplinary and educational action. According to her, the parents of the three attacking students expressed regret for their children’s actions and condemned them. The Arab students who were involved in the attack were suspended from school for three days.
The staff of both schools held a joint meeting with the Director of Education in Acco to prepare for continued cooperation between the institutions.
It should be pointed out that no Hilmi Shaf’ai teachers waited for the Rose teachers outside to pelt them with stones. Peace in our time.
